I’ve heard Nike’s famous slogan, “Just Do It” for a long time. While it never had the impact on me to push me to exercise, I thought it appropriate to use once I read this story.
It was Spring of 1942 when Bob Fletcher found himself watching the training begin to roll through the Florin community of central California. These were not passenger trains – they were deportation trains sending his neighbors to prison camps. Once they began arriving, he knew he had to do something.
Executive Order 9066 had just been signed which sent over 120,000 Japanese Americans, most citizens, out of their homes and to internment camps. Their crime was their ancestry
The Tsukamoto family; the Nittas; the Okamotos – all families he’d known for years. Third-generation farmers whose orchards fed the valley and whose children played with his children.
They were being imprisoned by their government. The evacuation notices gave them only a few days to sell everything or abandon it. Most families sold their life’s work for pennies. Furniture for a dollar. Cars for twenty. A life work erased in desperate fire sales.
The land sat empty with multitudes of orchards laden with unpicked fruit. Houses locked but left unprotected. Then, as is always the case, the “vultures” began descending.
Neighbors who were friendly on Sunday now eyed the abandoned properties with ruthless calculation, seeing opportunity. Free land if they waited long enough. The assumption was simple and cruel: these people aren’t coming back.
But Bob, a 30-year-old agricultural inspector, saw the difference. He saw his friends being destroyed by an unjust law. And he saw a choice in front of him. Sure, he could look away like everyone else, or he could do something that seemed impossible. So he quit his job. He went to each of the three families before they boarded the trains and made a promise that sounded insane: “I will run your farms. I will keep your trees alive. I will pay your taxes from the profits. I will save every cent for you. And when you come home, everything will be here.” Realizing how impossible all of this sounded, the families tried to refuse. “It’s too much. We can’t ask this of you.” But Bob wasn’t asking permission. He was making a vow.
The next three years defined Bob’s character forever. He began working before dawn and finished after dark. He pruned thousands upon thousands of trees by himself. He irrigated fields and harvested fruit then driving to markets. He was doing the work of three families with his own two hands. You would think his actions would be admired. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
The farming community turned on Bob hatefully and viciously. He was called him a “Jap-lover.” They slashed his truck tires repeatedly. Someone fired a bullet through his barn wall as a warning. Anonymous notes told him to let the farms rot or face consequences. He was no longer welcome at local businesses. Former friends crossed the street to avoid him. But Bob Fletcher never flinched. He just kept working.
The imprisoned families, hearing of his sacrifice through letters, made an offer through their lawyers: “Please, Bob. Move into our houses. Sleep in real beds. Use our furniture. You’re killing yourself out there.” Bob’s response revealed everything about his character — he refused. He simply couldn’t sleep in their comfortable beds while they slept on military cots in desert prison camps. It just wasn’t right. Instead, Bob and his wife moved into the migrant workers’ bunkhouse on one of the properties. They could certainly have lived in comfort, but they chose not to.
Here’s where the story gets interesting. Bob could have easily kept the money. There was no oversight — no one to check the books. Bob did the opposite, taking only enough salary to survive for the basics. Everything else, every dollar of profit from three years of brutal labor, was deposited in bank accounts under the families’ names. He kept meticulous records. Every penny accounted for. Every harvest documented.
Then came the end to the war — August 1945. The camps opened and slowly, Japanese-American families began the journey back to California. Most returned to find their lives destroyed by vandalism, stolen property, land sold for taxes, dreams erased. But the Tsukamoto, Nitta, and Okamoto families stepped off the train in Florin, expecting the same devastation, but instead found their farms blooming. Even the equipment was oiled and functional. And in the bank, Bob had deposited three full years of profits, every cent accounted for.
In later years, Al Tsukamoto would say: “Bob Fletcher was the greatest man I ever knew. He didn’t just save our farms. He saved our faith in humanity.” Bob Fletcher didn’t seek recognition. He and his wife quietly returned to their own lives. Years later, when journalists finally tracked him down to ask why he did it, his short, five-word answer, would echo through history: “It was the right thing.”
Bob Fletcher lived to the ripe old age of 101, living long enough to see those families prosper again. He didn’t change the law. He didn’t stop the injustice. He couldn’t empty the camps or rewrite history. But he could tend an orchard. He could keep a promise. He could refuse to profit from his neighbors’ suffering.
As we find ourselves in an era where we face division, fear and hatred, let’s remember a man who proved that one person with moral courage can be a sanctuary. When laws are unjust, work to change them. When neighbors are taken, protect what they leave behind. When crowds choose hatred, choose humanity.
When no one’s watching – just do it!
Tagged: farm life, prison ministry
